Instant lottery tickets (e.g., “scratch-off” lottery tickets) are sold at many types of retail locations including, stores, such as grocery stores, general merchandise stores, and the like. Various configurations of lottery ticket dispensers have been proposed in the industry for this purpose, including electronic dispensers that automatically dispense a ticket from a bin or compartment upon receipt of an electronic command signal.
The typical scratch-off lottery tickets are delivered to retail establishments in the form of an interconnected strip in a fan-fold or rolled configuration, wherein perforation lines define individual tickets. In this regard, the individual dispensing bins must be equipped with a mechanism for separating the tickets in a reliable and repeatable manner. Various separation devices, such as tear bars, rotary knives, bursting wheels, and so forth are used in lottery ticket dispensers for this purpose. Failure of the final ticket separation process can be costly. For example, if the dispenser does not separate a ticket exactly along the perforation, the ticket may be “unsellable” or information needed for verification can be separated from the ticket and lost.
One cause of improper ticket separation relates to how the ticket feed is detected. In order to advance the interconnected tickets through the drive mechanism by a sufficient amount (length) to ensure that the perforation line is precisely positioned relative to the separation device, the linear ticket feed is often detected by a proximity detector or other sensor (e.g., an edge detector) located within or adjacent to the feeding mechanism. As a ticket tears or is separated from the fanfold, small particles of the ticket material are released and settle within the ticket feeding mechanism and can block the sensor. Thus, such particles can interfere with a proper detection of the ticket by the proximity sensor and result in an erroneous ticket feed.
With certain types of feed mechanisms, inherent characteristics of the drive wheels, clutches, etc., may cause the tickets to skew slightly during the feeding process and lose a desired alignment with the separation mechanism. Loss of alignment with the ticket separation mechanism will generally result in an improper ticket separation.
Another variable that detrimentally impacts the ability to consistently align the perforation lines with the separation device is the manufacturing tolerances of the tickets in general. The length of individual tickets with respect to other tickets in the same fan-fold or rolled stream can vary, for example on the order of a fraction of an inch (e.g., 1/16 inch) inch or so. As a result, even though the separation blade or other type of device may be aligned with the majority of the perforation lines of weakness in a given stack, due to such length, it can easily become misaligned with the perforation lines of other tickets in the same stack.
Another problem that can occur is, if the perforation line itself is defective, the tickets may not separate cleanly along the perforation line. Typically, in such a case, the separation edge is not a straight line, and portions of the separated ticket may remain with the adjacent ticket causing the separation boundary to contain irregular curves.
Finally, another problem that can occur is, if the perforation itself is defective, the tickets may not separate cleanly, along the line of perforation. Typically in such a case the separation edge is not a straight line but portions of the separated tickets may remain with the previously adjacent ticket causing the separation boundary to contain irregular curves.
The present invention provides a reliable and cost-effective improvement to lottery ticket alignment and separation in automated dispensers that addresses at least certain problems noted in the art.